


These Guns

by bonyenne



Series: MCU Soulmate Standalones [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Humor, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 00:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14248875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonyenne/pseuds/bonyenne
Summary: “And I just happened to be wondering, would you know what Steve’s soulmark is?”Without missing a beat Tony nodded and Steve’s heart leapt. Howard was a scientist; he must have documented the color change that took place during his transformation! Finally, Clint’s nosing around would backfire on him! He began to smile as Tony opened his mouth.“Steve doesn’t have a soulmark. His official soulmate as recorded by the U.S. Government is Lady Liberty.”Steve lost his balance and crashed into the cupboard.





	These Guns

It took over three weeks for Clint to stop cracking up every time Steve ran into him. After another two he still snickered every time Steve tried to talk to him about it. Today, Steve was seriously considering offering to strip to prove it.

He wasn’t sure when Clint would start believing him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand where Clint was coming from either, because he did, the expression had been around since his time, but if being the paragon of Truth and Justice could actually come in handy for once in his life, he really would have preferred it to be right about now. Instead, it just seemed to make things more amusing to Clint that Steve, of all people, would lie about his soulmark. Gritting his teeth, Steve failed to notice the full jug of orange juice slowly crumpling in his hand until it burst.

“Watch out, Capsicle, looks like you’re melting.”

Because of course that would happen right when Tony walked in.

“Wait, Tony, didn’t your dad basically make Steve?”

Tony raised an eyebrow and chucked a dishtowel at Steve as he made his way to the coffeemaker.

“You do know I have daddy issues the size of Texas, right? Might wanna read your spy files again, Stevie Wonder. But to answer your question: yes, dear old pops did make the easy-bake oven that this beefcake here came out of.”

Steve sank to the floor to wipe the orange juice up, wondering how feasible it would be to just rip up the floorboards and keep sinking.

“So he must have made copious notes which you couldn’t help but read, right? You being you, that is.”

Steve and Tony both watched Clint with narrowed eyes as he continued.

“So basically, you know a lot about Steve.”

“…And?”

“And I just happened to be wondering, would you know what Steve’s soulmark is?”

Without missing a beat Tony nodded and Steve’s heart leapt. Howard was a scientist; he must have documented the color change that took place during his transformation! Finally, Clint’s nosing around would backfire on him! He began to smile as Tony opened his mouth.

“Steve doesn’t have a soulmark. His official soulmate as recorded by the U.S. Government is Lady Liberty.”

Steve lost his balance and crashed into the cupboard.

“You okay there, buster?”

“ _Peachy_ ,” he bit out, leaving the towel on the floor as he stalked out of the kitchen.

 

—————

 

Natasha grinned at Steve and winked at Clint. “Never have I ever… gotten a tattoo I regretted later.”

“No regrets!” Tony crowed, leaving his glass in front of him.

Pepper’s glass was also untouched, though she raised an eyebrow at Tony. “Tony, I’ve seen your tattoos. You might want to rethink your stance on regrets.”

Clint cheered and tossed down two shots, toasting Bruce when he sighed and took a swig of his tea.

“It was college and I’m not saying anything more on the matter.”

He was just opening his mouth to start the next one when Clint hushed him.

“Not so fast, big guy! We’ve got a cheater in our midst.”

Bruce frowned as both Clint and Natasha’s heads swiveled to point directly at Steve. Pepper sighed, though Tony leaned forward with a grin.

“Is this about whatever Clint’s been going on about for the last two months?”

“This is about _nothing_ ,” Steve snarled as he crossed his arms, grateful that his sleeves covered everything.

“This is about,” Clint declared, wobbling a bit as he stood up and pointed Steve down, “this is about you taking _responsibility_ for your actions.”

“What, are you pregnant?”

Pepper snorted at Tony’s comment, clapping a hand over her mouth at Clint’s wounded look. Natasha grinned as well, patting Clint on the back but refusing to let the focus switch from Steve.

“I have to admit, Steve, they do look pretty suspicious.”

“Since when do _you_ —”

She leveled a look at him and he stuttered to a stop. Okay yeah, he probably should have expected that she would have somehow discovered it by now. He took a moment to wonder whether he should be disappointed or relieved that she apparently hadn’t spied on him enough to realize there were no marks anywhere else on his body before deciding on relieved, as disappointing as it also was to not have any backup on this. A man did need his privacy, after all.

After two more eternity-filled minutes of back-and-forth arguments with Clint and Natasha and pleading for insight from Tony (Bruce and Pepper abstained), Steve finally ended up shirtless.

Through no agreement of his own.

He glared at Dum-E, who was now stuffing the ripped shirt into a blender as Tony flashed thumbs ups in his general direction.

“How did he even get up here?”

“Elevators. Nice tattoo. Sure you don’t regret it, considering how much you doth protest?”

“It’s not a tattoo!!”

Pepper shot an apologetic look at Steve and dragged Tony aside for a quick moment as Bruce and Nat leaned forward to examine his arms up close. Clint flopped down next to Steve, throwing a companionly arm around his shoulders.

“Look, I’ll grant that maybe the words on your right bicep are your soulmark, as long as you admit that you did the left bicep on your own.”

“It really does work well with the open-ended phrase though,” Nat chimed in.

“That’s because it’s not open-ended!! It’s all one phrase!!”

Bruce put a hand on Steve’s wrist. “Steve, I don’t know what sort of ideas surrounded tattoos when you were raised, but nowadays it’s perfectly natural to get them. We won’t judge you.”

“You guys are judging me _right now!_ ” His voice was getting panicky but seriously, even Bruce wasn’t on his side? Had he no allies left? “Pepper??”

Pepper dragged Tony back to the circle and threw a blanket over her soulmate, offering his newly shed shirt to Steve. She took a clinical look at his arms and then suggested they move on to the next round, neatly sidestepping his question.

“Oh my god, you don’t believe me either.”

She shrugged a little. “I’m sorry Steve, but a soulmark is really supposed to be in your soulmate’s handwriting. Even if their hand changes that drastically for those specific words every single time they write it, you have to admit that… well, it’d take a lot of dedication, the theme is highly coincidental, and even if the super serum added color as you said to Clint last week, I’ve never heard of one split across multiple body parts.”

Steve hid his face in his borrowed shirt, tugging it on with more force than necessary and hearing it rip across the backs of his shoulders. Clint looked a little sheepish when his head popped out, but everyone else was tactfully watching Bruce come up with the next round. He shrugged and Steve’s eyes got as close to shooting lasers as they ever would. Even if hadn’t expected Pepper to eviscerate him so thoroughly, there would be consequences, starting with—

Steve snatched the shot glass out of Clint’s hand, downing it without a clue what he was admitting to and replacing it with a pint glass full of Bruce’s tea, which he knew for a fact that the archer hated.

“You’re gonna drink it and _you’ll like it_ ,” he hissed as Clint tried to set it down. Upon making eye contact Clint blanched, taking a sip and sinking back into the cushions with a disgusted look on his face.

Tony loudly cleared his throat and began his own admission.

 

—————

 

Darcy wrinkled her nose, sinking to the ground next to one of the boxes and digging in her purse for her Gelly Rolls.

“This is the most boring assignment ever, Janey. Why couldn’t we at least have been stuck in your lab with wi-fi or something??”

Jane crossed her arms and huffed, nearly sitting on the box next to Darcy before remembering what they contained and jumping up with a yelp, turning to pace the narrow spaces between the boxes instead.

“It’s not an assignment, Darce, you know that. And if it’s anyone’s fault we ended up here it’s yours for dragging me out to get fresh air.”

“Okay, first of all, I did _not_ know that there would be an attack, second of all, JARVIS is the one who picked the electronic lock and told us to stay put, and third of all, _you’re_ the one who looked in the open box.”

“Right, and whose idea was it to call a computer that literally never leaves its building and have it start letting us into random places? How did you even manage to make that work anyway?? Never mind, I don’t want to know — you should know by now that we have alien attacks like every two weeks; this is why I don’t leave the building! We were due!!”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “You know full well that’s a gambler’s fallacy, and he did it through the phone. They’re these wild technological marvels nowadays? They have the internet and everything!” She wrinkled her nose, switching colors. “That is, when the aliens aren’t jamming it or whatever.”

Jane sighed and finally stopped pacing. Proper use of statistics usually helped calm her down, especially when she was the one who’d taught it to Darcy in the first place. Nudging Darcy with her foot she wedged herself in next to her, peering at the logos covering the side of the box.

“Well thank you for remembering your logical fallacies at least.”

Darcy grinned. “Only after much beating into me. You can say it, ‘thank you for proving me right, Darcy.’”

“Har-dee-har,” Jane rolled her eyes. “You have too much fun with that mark of yours. Are you drawing logos again?”

“Well yeah, how could I not? I’m always prepared, like Scar and the boy scouts.”

“Interesting groups you’ve chosen to lump yourself in with. You’ve done all of these in the minute and a half since I started pacing? What’s the theme today? Weapons manufacturers?”

Darcy shrugged. “Avengers, obviously, considering our situation. And JARVIS is really the only new one I’ve come up with today, so they went quickly. What do you feel about the coloring on yours? I’m not sold on it, and I’d like your input before I fill out any more forms with what I’ve got now.”

“Since when am I an Avenger?”

“Janey, you discovered a real live Einstein-Rosen Bridge and hosted an infinity stone in your body and survived. You get called to speak at so many huge functions that we literally had to move to New York so you could do that while keeping up with your research. You’re a total hero.”

Jane wrinkled her nose and blushed, looking away to watch the door. After a second she rocked sideways and knocked her shoulder against Darcy’s in silent thanks. “So what time did JARVIS say Captain America was coming?”

Darcy let her head fall on Jane’s in response to the thanks as she wedged her hand down into her purse to dig out her phone again. “Idk, like nowish? He said asap. Have you met him yet?”

“No, and I can’t say I don’t wish it was in better circumstances than these.”

Darcy grinned. “But what could be more exciting than meeting the hero himself in the middle of a giant battle while doing something cool and heroic ourselves?”

With perfect timing, the door creaked open, revealing two shadowy figures in tactical gear. Darcy scrambled up, throwing herself in front of Jane and sticking her arms out as though they would block the sixteen boxes of heavy artillery they’d discovered.

“Stand back!” She snapped at the shorter one as he rushed forward. He froze in place, holding up his hands and staring behind her. Darcy glanced over her shoulder before realizing it could be a trick and snapping her eyes back to the front. It wasn’t, and they both had their hands up now as Jane came up next to her, leveling one of the guns in their direction. Darcy’s jaw dropped and she nudged Jane with her elbow before realizing that was probably a bad idea considering she was literally holding a machine gun at the ready.

“Shit Janey, you’re like super cool right now!”

The tall one slowly stepped forward, opening his mouth. She interrupted before he could get anything out, crossing her arms and widening her stance to something suitably commanding and heroic.

“These guns belong to _Captain America!”_

He winced, hands still up as the other one dissolved into laughter, collapsing against the side wall. Darcy blinked and Jane lowered the gun, peering at his face.

“Darcy, I think that _is_ —”

“Thank you for proving me right, but did you _have_ to do the logo??”

 


End file.
